Suddenly, Haman’s fantasy turned into a nightmare. He became the humiliated noble, and it turned out that Mordecai was the one he had to honour! From the annals, or possibly from officials who were aware of the fact (see Esther 3:4; Esther 6:1), the king had learned that Mordecai was a Jew.
It is strange that this fact did not bother the king, seeing that he had authorized the annihilation of the Jews. It is likely that he was not even aware of the fact that it was the Jews whom he had given Haman permission to kill. During their private conversation, Haman had only referred to the Jews as a certain people
(Esther 3:8).
The king was also not aware of the fact that Haman and Mordecai were very well acquainted. He thought it necessary to describe Mordecai (the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate
) to Haman.
10 Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry; take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do so to Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Leave out nothing that you have mentioned.”